


No Little Trust

by kenzimone



Category: Into the Wild (book)
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider, backdated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-10
Updated: 2010-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-02 04:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10936632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzimone/pseuds/kenzimone
Summary: The body rolls and comes to rest at the bottom of the ditch, neck snapping back with a distasteful crack, and that's when he notices the faint movement by the tree line.





	No Little Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Written as an assignment for my writing course, in which I was supposed to take a scene from the book and rewrite it from another perspective, using a maximum of 600 words.

He doesn't even see her in the dark. One of the headlights on his truck is out, and has been for a week; he stepped out of the corner store to find it smashed, the glass littering the pavement beneath his front bumper, the street deserted. Damn kids probably did it, running rampant with no adult supervision. Like wild coyotes, the lot of them.

It's not an excuse. At least, he doesn't _mean_ for it to be, but it happened. It's late, the sun long since set and the sky overcast, and she comes out of the woods and tries to cross the road on his blind side. He doesn't even realize she's there until he hears the dull thud of her body hitting his grill and feels the truck lurch as its wheels pass over her body.

There's not much he can do. Can't save her, too late for that, but he can't leave her there, either. He turns the truck around and backtracks, and in the light of his one remaining headlight he drags her limp body off the road and pushes it down into the ditch.

The body rolls and comes to rest at the bottom, neck snapping back with a distasteful crack, and that's when he notices the faint movement by the tree line.

He brings it home with him. Can't leave it there, not after he killed its mother. It's skittish, but it's also tiny and frail – can't be too old, and he catches it easily when it tries to evade him.

It rides shotgun all the way back to his house, too terrified to move from where he placed it, and before he retires for the night his wife helps him make up a soft bed for it (a pillow covered in rags ripped from old shirts and bedsheets) behind the wood stove in their kitchen.

. . .

Billie and her family come to visit the following week. Just as he'd expected, Christopher is absolutely taken by the fawn that lies napping in Grandpa's kitchen. Loren runs a hand over his grandson's hair and delights in the way the boy takes a seat by the animal's bed and breathlessly, reverently, watches it sleep.

"That's nature," Loren says, and Christopher's eyes are on him, soaking up every word. "It takes care of us, young and old. And sometimes, we get the opportunity to return that favor. That's no little trust. Can't take it for granted."

Christopher nods, mouth pressed into a thin line, looking as serious as a nine year old can. His grandfather smiles.

. . .

Years later, Billie hands him a photograph. In it, Christopher is beaming at the camera, wearing a wide smile and kneeling at the head of a recently felled moose, his rifle held high and triumphantly over his head.

"He regretted it later," she says, like it needs explaining. "Knew he couldn't eat it all, that he should have killed something smaller. Felt real sorry for it."

Loren runs his thumb over the picture, lets it linger by his grandson's face.

"I know," he says.

**Author's Note:**

> When the book first mentioned Chris' grandfather, I was really taken by his character – he seemed like a good man, and someone Chris looked up to. I tried to imagine how he would have felt, getting the news of his grandson's death. I don't know if Loren Johnson was still alive when Chris' body was found, but for the purpose of this text I assume that he was.
> 
> For reference: chapter 11 (Loren Johnson), and chapter 16 (the moose kill).


End file.
